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Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi,安澜.
Hi Lulu, hi everyone.
安澜 I know over the years we've talked about a lot of fun topics, but today I would propose a pretty painful topic. I hope you don't mind.
That's fine. How painful we’re talking?
You remember last time when we were discussing the coronation of your new King, we mentioned that people had problems with this elaborate spending because there's a huge cost of living crisis in the UK.
Yes.
大家看新闻, 包括中文媒体报道的可能就会每天都能看到英国, 甚至整个欧洲都有 cost of living, 就物价的上涨, 还有老百姓的各种罢工什么的.
So I thought we talked about cost of living, get to the bottom of it, what cost it and how are people dealing with it?
As you say, it's not a particularly light topic. So we are gonna be talking a little bit about the economy and we also be talking a little bit about the background behind this. I'm sure that there probably a few economists listening to this, so if you are, please also let us know your thoughts.
Exactly. Or people who actually live in the UK.
Absolutely.
First of all, cost of living就是生活成本; but cost of living crisis, this is very easy to understand, it's basically it's getting more and more expensive to live in the UK.
That's right. Prices and inflation have increased dramatically in a very short period of time, much faster than real incomes.
Basically your income does not go up, but all of your outgoings, all of your expenses go up.
That's right. So it is becoming a lot more expensive to live in the UK and I noticed it myself. I went back to the UK last year in 2022 for the first time since 2019, I was quite surprised how expensive things had got.
And this basically covered everything or covers everything, right, from things you buy in supermarket to going out to have a drink in the pub.
Inflation is around 10%. And as an attempt to try and stop the inflation, interest rates have also been increasing.
首先通胀率是高起10% that's pretty high. But interest rate, honestly, every time you guys increased the interest rate, I was like this has got to be the last time they do it. They can't just keep doing it and then they do it again and then they do it again.
Don't mention it. I've got a mortgage in the UK and when I first got my mortgage, it was like 1% interest, now it's 6%.
Jesus. 所以从1个点到6个点的增长.
Yes.
How many times they've been doing it? At least 8, 9 times already.
I've lost count.